Jilting the Duke

by Rachael Miles

  Sophia could not refuse such pure joy. “If Forster is certain that he wishes to give the set to you.” She looked at Aidan, who had unfolded himself from the floor and was brushing off his trousers.

  “I’m certain.”

  Ian cheered and hugged Sophia again.

  “Tell his grace thank you for his gift,” she reminded gently.

  “I already have, Mama,” Ian said. “He told me I had to have your permission to keep them. May I show Luca my new soldiers?”

  “Certainly. You may play until we dress for dinner, but remember we dine at your aunt’s tonight.” Sophia was barely able to finish her sentence before Ian, yelling for Luca, ran from the room, leaving her alone with Aidan.

  She turned to him, still smiling at Ian’s happiness. “I’m sure Ian will value the soldiers. When he is older, if you wish for him to return them for your own sons to treasure, I’m sure he will.”

  “They have been in a box for many years. I’d rather Ian enjoy them.” Aidan did not acknowledge her comment about sons.

  “That is very kind. I can’t think of anything that Ian would value more. He and Tom used to play at soldier for hours. . . .” She let the sentence fall off into silence. Aidan was standing close by, not so close that she felt ill at ease, but enough for her to be aware of his height, the breadth of his shoulders. She shook herself inwardly. Her awareness of him was nothing unusual. She had always been aware of him. “How long have you been here?”

  Aidan laughed. “Long enough to realize that the last time I sat on the floor playing soldiers, my bones were much younger.” He leaned forward slightly, narrowing the distance between them, “Lavender. That’s it. You smell like lavender.”

  For a moment, Sophia thought Aidan had intended to embrace her, and her heart leapt. But it was only the lavender.

  “I’ve been in the garden . . . planting. I thought you had forgotten him—you didn’t send a note—I was coming to console him. I was so relieved to hear him laughing.”

  “Can you forgive my lapse in etiquette?” He smiled apologetically. “I had intended simply to deliver the box with the soldiers, but Ian saw me at the door, and . . . well, after that we were deep in the throes of battle.” He leaned into her once more and breathed deeply. “I’ve always loved the scent of lavender. Perhaps you could show me where lavender would grow best in my garden.”

  “If you would like. I seem to have used up all London had remaining this far into summer. I’ve written the estate for more. Perkins can bring some to your garden when he returns with the new plants.”

  It had been easy to reject Phee’s recommendation to seduce Aidan out of the guardianship before she’d seen him again. But now with him so close, she felt torn between her heart and her head. Her heart wanted to step into his embrace and taste his kisses once more. But her head told her not to break their civil distance lest the resulting conversation turn acrimonious and destroy their ability to care for Ian together.

  “With Ian as my ward, I will come to town more frequently. It would be embarrassing to let the garden remain in disrepair,” he offered confidentially. “I don’t live far. You can even see the barest corner of my rooftop from the nursery windows.” Sophia searched his face, but found no hint that he’d recognized her in the park.

  “I’d be happy to offer whatever advice you find useful.” Anything to encourage him to come into town rather than take Ian to his estate. She led him to the stairs.

  “The plants should arrive next week?”

  “Yes. Perkins has family on the estate, and I told him there was no reason to return quickly.”

  “Then I look forward to next week.” They descended in companionable silence.

  Dodsley met them at the foot of the stairs, then disappeared to retrieve Aidan’s coat, hat, and gloves.

  “As for tonight, what time would be best to collect you and Ian?”

  “Tonight?” She struggled to remember what she might have agreed to. “We have promised to go to Ophelia’s for a family dinner.”

  “Yes, and Ophelia has asked me to play escort. She insists the ducal carriage will be more comfortable than, as she said, ‘that claptrap carriage of Tom’s.’”

  “Oh, dear. I knew it rattled.” She could not refuse, not with him living so near. Dodsley, returning, helped Aidan into his coat, and Sophia noticed how the broad line of his shoulders fit exactly. “Would an hour before be sufficient to arrive on time?”

  “We’ll have time to spare.” Aidan put on his hat and gloves, then, offering a gracious half-bow, took his leave.

  * * *

  Aidan considered his morning well-spent. He’d set his footman to watch Sophia’s house and report when Ian went to the park with his nurse. Then, he had timed his arrival to coincide with Ian’s returning home. He wanted to give the soldiers to Ian without Sophia present.

  He had moved the soldiers to London for his nephews, but he had never been able to part with the box—or even open it. He’d justified it to himself by saying the little devils could not treat things with care. But in truth, the soldiers, horses, wagons, and cannons were not simply toys to be set on a felt battleground, but reminders of a youth spent with Tom. As Ian—so nearly resembling his father—lifted each figure from the box, Aidan allowed himself to remember. Their tricks and games. Their scrapes and secrets.

  Sharp-witted and funny, Ian knew stories from Aidan’s shared youth with Tom. But Ian also asked questions that suggested someone had been sending Tom reports on Aidan’s activities for years. The information went beyond typical tourist fare.

  But who?

  “Ian”—Aidan had laughed, after a pointed question about his expenditures at his club—“did your mother tell you stories about me, too?”

  Ian looked into the distance. “No, Mama never talks about her childhood, and Papa told me that I shouldn’t tell Mama the stories he told me about you.”

  “Why?”

  “Papa said it would make her sad, so we made you a secret.”

  The stories Tom had told Ian seemed clearly designed to make the boy accept Aidan’s guardianship. But why keep them a secret from Sophia? True, Sophia wouldn’t have wanted her child to romanticize the scrapes of a youth run wild. But was there more to it?

  At the thought of Sophia, Aidan smiled despite himself. Sophia transformed by Ian’s joy, though still reserved and cautious, was more filled with life than the Sophia he had met yesterday. Yesterday’s Sophia was bolstered by her library and the protection of Tom’s portrait. But today’s Sophia, caught off guard at finding Aidan in the nursery, had none of those supports. Even her clothes made her more human, a light muslin gardening frock, stained from grass and mud. He wanted more time to watch her reactions, to learn how to shape his demeanor to gain her trust.

  At least that’s what he told himself.

  Aidan stopped on the sidewalk, letting the street vendors move around him. Only one person could have sent Tom such detailed intelligence. Recalling the address, he caught a hackney for the offices of Leverill and Cort.

  He arrived in the City some thirty minutes later. He knew what he wanted—no, needed—to know. But how to encourage the stocky solicitor to comply? Where Sophia was concerned, Aidan rarely told the truth. At first, he’d lied to conceal his growing affection from a father who believed all women avaricious: “Beware of women, my boy: if you steal a kiss, they will snatch your purse.” Then after Sophia’s marriage to Tom, he’d lied to preserve the possibility of revenge. But Aldine was not the sort of man one could easily manipulate, and Aidan was left with telling the truth . . . or at least a portion of it.

  A brown-haired clerk with small dark glasses and a limp met him at the entrance and escorted him to Aldine’s office. The odd-looking fellow had accompanied Aldine to deliver the guardianship papers. Something niggled at the back of Aidan’s memory—an unsettling mix of familiarity and distrust, as if he had recognized something hiding in a shadow. Likely, the sensation was just an echo of the world of sus
picion and subterfuge in which he had worked during the war. But before he could trace the feeling, the clerk knocked on Aldine’s office door and announced him.

  Aldine sat at a desk piled high with paper, surrounded by shelves and cabinets, filing drawers and cubbyholes. Papers rolled tightly rested in the range of cubbyholes to his right. But what would have been chaos under other men had the appearance of a studied order under Aldine. Aidan knew without question that Aldine could place his hands in an instant on any papers he wanted.

  Aldine began to rise, but Aidan waved him back into his seat, then placed his overcoat on the back of a chair and sat. “I have some questions.”

  “About the guardianship.” Aldine anticipated.

  “In a way. To what extent did your correspondence with the late Lord Wilmot include information about my life?”

  Aldine smiled enigmatically. “The late Lord Wilmot wished to remain apprised of your . . . activities. I provided news from various sources.”

  “You had me watched.” Aidan interpreted.

  “My predecessors did so. I preferred different methods.”

  Aidan raised an eyebrow.

  “A traveler at an inn near your estate gathers more than adequate information about the status of your rents, your crops. A young blade in need of funds listens well at your club. The firm has ears in most of the clubs, gambling hells, and brothels, even at Almack’s. But be assured: none of my listeners would have found it striking for your name to appear on my list.”

  Observing was easy when the subject didn’t know he was being watched. And Aidan hadn’t thought of himself as an object of investigation since the war.

  “I did no less for Wilmot than I would do for your grace. I assume you wish to know what information I sent Lord Wilmot.” Aldine took a roll of papers from one of the cubbyholes, then spread the roll out on his blotter and placed weights on each corner to hold the papers flat.

  Aidan leaned forward to read the documents, but Aldine motioned him back.

  “You will refuse to let me read your correspondence?”

  “No. Lord Wilmot gave his permission to make the correspondence available to you, at your request. But it is to remain a secret from her ladyship, until such time as you give your consent. I sent the information about you separately from our regular correspondence, including it in the embassy packet. A young clerk collected it from the ambassador’s staff.”

  “Did you find Wilmot’s wish to conceal his correspondence from Lady Wilmot suspicious?”

  “You may form your own judgment.” Aldine took his hat off the rack. “Will you accompany me? Or would you prefer I bring the papers to your home?”

  “I’ll accompany you.” Aidan pulled on his coat.

  “I assume you are not averse to subterfuge?”

  Aidan nodded his agreement.

  Aldine continued, “Then, I’m accepting your offer for coffee at your club. As we leave, we should discuss the horses you intend to purchase at Tattersalls.”

  “I see you still listen,” Aidan said.

  “I remain his young lordship’s agent.” Aldine opened his bag and left it at the side of the desk, and lifted his overcoat off the rack. The two men walked out of the office discussing the merits of the ponies to be auctioned on Monday.

  Outside the offices, Aldine hailed a hackney and followed Aidan into it, settling into the back-facing seat. “Solicitor’s offices are not always secure.”

  “The papers you laid out on the desk?”

  “A diversion.”

  “Your open valise by the desk is also a diversion.”

  “I wish it to appear we had nothing to discuss but ponies and coffee.”

  “You suspect one of your clerks?”

  “I’m uncertain.” Aldine looked out the carriage window, and Aidan followed his gaze. They were close to his club.

  “I assumed we were traveling somewhere other than my club.”

  “Can I trust you to keep our destination a secret? Or must we travel with the windows shuttered?”

  “You have my word.”

  Aldine tapped on the roof, and the hackney slowed. He handed up a slip of paper, and the carriage changed direction. “After his lordship’s death, you spent weeks in London, making inquiries,” Aldine explained, almost offhandedly.

  “I thought I’d been subtle.” Aidan hid his chagrin. Malcolm had also noticed his interest. Had others found it remarkable as well?

  As if anticipating the line of Aidan’s thought, Aldine offered, “I doubt if anyone else noticed. I simply saw a pattern in the reports I received. You suspected Lord Wilmot’s death was not natural.”

  “He was not yet thirty.” Aidan shrugged.

  “No, not yet thirty. But we lost many not yet thirty and not yet twenty, in the wars. One grows inured to the reports.”

  A companionable silence grew between them, both men understanding how much had been lost in defeating Bonaparte.

  Aidan watched the buildings change, the neighborhood grow less mercantile and more rural. They were heading north and east, out of the City, toward St. Pancras and Camden Town. Aidan calculated how much time he would need to return home in time to change for dinner. Eventually the hackney stopped in an unassuming neighborhood, little more than a crossroads with brick row houses on either side. The carriage pulled into the mews behind one row. Aldine directed Aidan through an apparently unused kitchen, to the front of the house, and into a cozy drawing room. The decorations suggested a spinster with an affection for lace.

  Aldine pointed Aidan to an upholstered armless chair, then slipped from the room.

  The maple furniture was decades old, in the style of Queen Anne. A hoop with embroidery half-finished lay to the side of the sofa, and a book open on the writing desk gave the impression of a resident returning soon. But the air in the room was stale and the table not recently dusted. The room was staged to appear as if someone lived in the house. If Aidan were a betting man, he would have said that Aldine lived somewhere else.

  Aldine returned with several pasteboard hat boxes stacked high enough to hide his lower face.

  “Tom would have liked this.” Aidan motioned at the room, the hat boxes. “As a boy, he was always squirreling things away, creating hiding places in books or under drawers, tapping the wall of every room to find the secret passageways. At Harrow, he even had a suitcase with a false bottom where he would hide his treasures.”

  Aldine opened the lid of the top hat box to reveal it was filled with letters. “I’m pleased to know my circumspection would have pleased his lordship. I moved most of my correspondence with Lord Wilmot here when I realized you had suspicions about his death.”

  “Most?”

  “I left enough to avoid questions if a clerk noticed we had no documents, but nothing of note. These boxes concern you; you will find copies of every communication we sent his lordship interleaved with his responses. His lordship indicated you may read in my presence.”

  Aldine picked up a newspaper and moved to the couch. Aidan opened the first box.

  The reading was sobering, a detailed record of his sins. The reports began with his return from the Continent after Aaron’s death. The names of all his mistresses, their whereabouts, how much he had spent on them, their settlements on parting, which gambling hells he preferred, even the nights he’d appeared at Almack’s. It was better and worse than a diary. At least Aldine had been scrupulous in recording the good with the bad.

  In the end Aidan felt weighed in the balance, and he found himself wanting. The only information Aldine hadn’t recorded was Aidan’s work for the Home Office. It would have explained some of Aidan’s behavior. But whether that would have counted him a sinner or a saint, there was no way to tell. He’d be a fool if he ever gave Sophia permission to read the documents.

  He was grateful Tom had withheld the information from Sophia. If she knew even a tenth of the information hidden in the hat boxes, his campaign would be doomed. When Ophelia had confided that the com
ments of tourists had made Sophia wary of him as Ian’s guardian, Aidan had passed it off as nothing more than the idle chatter of bored expatriates. Sophia had made no attempt to dredge up their past, not even when he had given her the opening on the stairs. But now he better understood in how damning a light the stories placed him and how reticent Sophia would have been to broach the rumors she’d heard, given his role as Ian’s guardian. But Ophelia was right: to allay Sophia’s reservations, he would have to be charming, solicitous, and subtle—though not for the reasons Ophelia would assume.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the middle of the library floor, Ian had laid out one of his favorite games, The Magic Ring. Printed on heavy paper then glued to sturdy linen, the game showed a knight reclining at the middle of four concentric circles, each circle connecting to the next to form a spiral. The spiral itself was divided into 50 steps, each one illustrated with a hand-colored symbol that told the player what to do when his marker landed there.

  Ian rolled the six-sided die. “Two!” He leaned forward to move his marker. “That takes me from step 26, the Basket of Flowers, to step 28! I’m more than halfway to the center!”

  The symbol for step 28 was an open chest filled with riches.

  “Do you get a reward or punishment for landing there?” Sophia asked.

  “A reward: ten counters from the bank.”

  Sophia counted out ten dried peas from the bag Cook had provided somewhat reluctantly.

  Grinning, Ian added them to his already large pile. “If we go by peas, I’m winning.”

  “You still have to beat me to step 50.” Sophia leaned over the game board to read the instructions printed in the margins. “Last turn I landed on 38, the Dove of Peace, so this turn I get to double whatever I roll.”

  She sat back, looking for the die on the floor between them, but couldn’t find it. She felt the floor and looked in the folds of her dress. “Ian, do you see . . .”